Page 5 of Wicked Thirst
“Weird how?” I sat forward. We’d been checking out random flare-ups of magic for weeks now, but nothing ever came of it.
“It’s like I could feel the power all around me, but there was nothing and literally no one in sight.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I mean, we were in the middle of the freaking desert, and there was absolutely nothing for miles.”
Beckett nodded. “Nothing but sunshine, sand, and ass sweat.”
“I’m telling you all something isn’t right.” The nagging feeling wouldn’t leave me alone. Day and night I felt a shift in the world, a shift that could not be explained.
“I agree.” Astrid nodded.
“I might not be able to feel what you do, but I believe you.” Tuck reached out and ran his hand over my back in small circles.
Astrid glanced up at me. “We might have to bring some extreme things in on this.”
“Extreme? Like what?”
“Like Ophelia and Maze.” She met my eye. “Send them on the hunt.”
I nodded. “You might be right. Nothing a little psycho and some psychic couldn’t help.”
“Does anyone else think they’ve been super weird lately?” Tuck glanced around at our blank stares. “I mean, more than usual?”
“They’re both definitely up to something.” Beckett nodded in agreement. “But we’ll never know what until they think it’s time to tell us.”
“It’s true. We just have to?—”
The door flew open and slammed into the wall. Adrianne slid into the room with a sheen of sweat covering her ebony skin. Her chest heaved with deep breaths. Her long, dark braids whipped around her head as she skidded to a halt and nearly slammed into the wall. “You have to come quick.”
I hopped to my feet. “What happened?”
“It’s Niche, she’s . . . she is not okay.” She waved her hand, motioning for us to hurry. “You have to come.”
Chairs scraped over the floor as we all sprinted from the room and down the stone hallway. Though the air was cold from winter, I felt my skin heat and my heart hammer in my chest as I pumped my arms trying to keep up with Adrianne. We ran up the stairs and across the courtyard toward the training room. It’d been ages since I’d been in the training room, but when we ran through those double doors, I found myself dragged back to those first days when I knew nothing of magic and the others weren’t even my friends yet. Now we’d made a family and Niche was part of it. I didn’t want anything to be wrong with her or anyone else in our crew.
Adrienne stopped just outside the door to Niche’s office and placed her hand on the knob, then turned to face us all. “Just prepare yourself and remember . . . move slowly.”
“You’re scaring me.” I didn’t know what was behind that door, but whatever happened it’d spooked Adrienne, and she was all logic and patience. The only things that rattled her were her own clumsiness and her mother, Athena.
“Just . . . go easy.” She turned away from me and opened the door. It creaked as it swung wide open and hit the wall.
The room was dim, with no windows and only a single candle in the middle of the room that bathed only some of it in warm light and left the rest of the room in shadows. Adrienne took a step back and let me go in first. All but one wall was covered in shelves, and each one held a dozen different pendulums—each made from a different stone. They all had their own stands where they hung and swung throughout the day. The last time I was in this room, they all moved in the same direction each time Niche asked me a question. Now they swung in wild circles as though the scattered energy was too much. I felt the power in the air, and it put me on edge.
Niche stood with her back to us and faced the one wall without shelves. On it was a huge map of the world. It was bigger than the one I had spread across the table in our meeting room. As the handler for the Witch Queens and their guardians, Niche had always been a guide of sorts. She trained our Guardians and kept on top of us all to become masters of our own magic. She’d always been so straight-laced with every strand of her fire-engine-red hair in place and her pressed lab coat. I couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t have her clipboard in hand to scribble notes across. Yet now her hair was piled in a messy ball on top of her head and her lab coat hung off one of her shoulders. It was so wrinkled it looked like she pulled it from a ball in the corner. Her body quivered from head to toe as she mumbled quietly to herself. I wasn’t even sure she heard us enter.
“Niche.” I barely touched her shoulder, and she startled and then spun around to face us.
“Oh good! You’re here!” Her lips pulled up in a manic smile and she shoved her glasses up her nose like she always did. Except this time, they fell crooked across her nose and she didn’t seem to notice.
I let my hand drop as I took in the map. It was covered in pins with red string running from one pin to another. It looked like a tangled spiderweb. Tiny Post-it notes littered the wall. Some made sense, others just had illegible scribbles on them. Tuck moved in beside me and lit a ball of fire in his hand. The whole room illuminated.
Niche flinched away from the offending light. “That is not necessary, Phoenix.”
In the light I could see the dark bags under her eyes and the open food wrappers littering the floor. Astrid took a tentative step toward her. “Niche, honey, when was the last time you slept?”
Niche paused and pulled a pen from the nest on top of her head. “I can’t remember . . . but . . . but you all have to listen to me.”
“We’re listening.” I’d never seen her like this—so manic, so panicked.
“Magic all over.” She began pointing at all the pins. “And . . . and we have no idea what it all is.”
